What's on my mind

Project: Our storm door has managed to completely tear itself from our door frame, as it's been threatening to do for a couple of months. Now I get to figure out how to remove the remaining storm door frame and then install a regular screen door in it's place. This will be delicate as, if you look closely you can see, the West side of the door frame has already been damaged. My goal will be not to cause additional damage. We are prepared this spring, after almost four years of doing no improvements to our home, to tackle some projects. The door issue will clearly be the first one, but many others remain. In my order of priority: getting a backyard fence so we can get a dog; painting the entire upstairs interior (minus the kids' rooms which have been done, but including stripping wallpaper in the bathroom); making bookshelves; replacing the pieces of Masonite siding which have succumbed to water damage; carpet/flooring issues in the front room and kitchen; fixing the door jamb from the kitchen out to the garage; fixing the garage door opener; refinishing the deck; replacing the windows (one by one); this list is longer than I thought, and probably sufficient. I doubt that most of this can be afforded the necessary time or money during 2009, but I'd love to have it all done this year.

Diet: On Thanksgiving day I weighed myself (pre-meal) and I was right at 170 pounds. I'm 5'4" and have weighed between 120 and 130 for most of my adult life (okay since 14, at which time I stopped growing). Needless to say, 170 is out of my comfort zone and also out of my healthy zone. The charts I read say that for my age and height I hould really try to be between 140 and 150 (turns out I was too skinny as a teen/young adult). So in good reactionary form, I swore that after the Thanksgiving festivities I would replace my soda and beer consumption with tea and wine. I tried to do this for a couple of weeks, but it wasn't working. Ultimately, I decided that I like being a beer snob more than I like being a loyal Coca-Cola drinker, so the tea stayed and the beer came back. As of this week, I'm slightly below 160 because of giving up the soda, and taking smaller portions at mealtime. I plan to, but have not yet, make a point of being a little more active this year as well. I'm confident that by maintaining my changes and adding some activity, I can get down to 140-150, which is my goal. Wish me luck!

Religion: We had a beautiful service in church today where we assigned adult mentors to some of the youth in our church and said a blessing over the mentor/mentee process. What I loved about this is that Shalom doesn't create this process in the self-righteous "we have all the answers" style that has been such a big part of religion in my life. I believe the most important part of religion in a life is the continuous question. I am turned off by the movement in Western Christianity that discourages active questioning because it's a sign of weak faith. This idea was reflected wonderfully by the service wherein statements were made about not having all the answers, and about deep questions in the past, present and future of the kids' and the adults' lives. Such a stigma has been attached to the term mysticism, but it seems to me that mysticism is exactly the context in which we should consider an all-powerful God.